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So, will this finally get Congress to at least discuss gun control? We don't know the situation with the gunman yet, but it's clear too many people have guns, who shouldn't. The Brady organization says at least 40% of transactions occur without a background check.

I saw my therapist Wednesday. We discussed how I witnessed a murder/suicide, while eating at a restaurant around age 6. We both said it would take a mass school shooting of very young kids, for people to seriously look at this problem. Again, this gunman may have obtained his gun legally and passed a background check, but there are more controls on prescription drugs than guns.

Jesus Fuckin Christ, can we save the Gun control Banter until tomorrow. You people amaze me sometimes.

I've had to take a couple Xanax, because it brings up so much anxiety, so please keep that in mind when telling people what to do. You're entitled to your opinion, but we always say lets have this conversation in a week or a few months, but it never happens. Frankly, I feel today is the day to start it.

What's wrong with the public that is not directly involved in this tragedy wanting to discuss gun control when a massacre by a raving gunman takes place? Right away. Even people like Obama.

The people surrounding the families and responders involved will pay proper respects and offer the support and condolences. The public not personally touched, but shocked by such senseless gun deaths, worried about their own loved ones facing such a horrific scene someday, etc, can just as well call a spade a spade and talk about gun control. I don't think this is nuclear physics. There isn't much need for highbrow constitutional rights and ethics conversations. Control the freaking guns.

I also fail to see that it is "mental illness" that "caused" the massacre. Surely the killer is a maniac but he was able to kill because he was a maniac with guns.

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ďFrom each, according to his ability; to each, according to his needĒ 1875 K Marx

Well, with all due respect your reaction to Ted's comment is pure bullshit.

This has been an awful day. Cling on to your desire to carry weapons all you want, but this tragedy wouldn't have happened as it did if some mentally unstable 20 year old hadn't had access to as many weapons as he did. I'm sure that all the families and friends of every victim wouldn't appreciate your comments either.

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

This has just been such an emotional day. I think i sat at work all day in shock, teared up off an on. Really sad. I think if i were a parent with kids in school i'd have to think twice about home schooling after all of this.

thank you rev.i really don't want to start a debate or make anyone feel bad about their initial gut reactions.i think we can all agree that the issue needs to be discussed and we need to demand more reform from our government.the problems will only get worse until we face them directly.

I just found out about the shooting from reading this forum. I have been making it a point lately to spend less time online. Such a horrible tragedy... I just can't imagine what those families are going through.

What a horrible, horrible, day.... The emotional impact for me and I see others, is so raw, and widespread. I can't even imagine the pain of the families directly involved and it has clearly affected this community.

It is clear that this community has compassion (which comes out in different ways for each of us) and it is times like this that deepen my appreciation for this community.

Well, with all due respect your reaction to Ted's comment is pure bullshit.

My reply was a response in Tedderz thread (which apparently was merged into this one), expressing my disdain at him launching head first into a chant about gun control before these precious kids bodies were even cold, in essence while it was still unfolding, without him even expressing any sympathy or thoughts about the kids. It hit me wrong, it still does. Then I came into this thread which I thought was a completely separate one to express my grief.

Im not for squashing gun control talk in the least bit, I just think that as a group of people cant we come together for a few hours absent of the division and rancor that is already occuring in this thread and in support of and out of respect for these Children and their families? Knowing full well that we will have plenty of days to let the spirited debate that is gun control unfold? Maybe I'm jsut not strong enough to do it right now.

Joe, the voice or reason as always, has the best idea yet...Start a separate gun control thread. Ill see yall over there in the next couple of days.

I'm sure that all the families and friends of every victim wouldn't appreciate your comments either.

this sir, is utter Bullshit. you dont know how I feel, ESPECIALLY after this incident. I would gladly give up all my guns if only we could have back these kids. I would do anything to not ahve this ahppen ever again. How dare you insinuate that I would ever say something to offend the poor families and friends of the victims. You sicken me with this.

Well, you made me quite angry with the way that you worded your reaction. So if I misread what you wanted to say I apologize. I simply had a problem with the tone and words that you chose.

We'll move along. This very saddening event is bigger than any animosity we may feel for one another.

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

I'm sorry, Willy, but I was also just now taken aback with the way you responded to teddy (and lots of the rest of us who feel somewhat the same). The statement he made in reference to gun control IS a direct relfection of feeling for these kids. Acting as if it is somehow inappropriate to pose the question strikes me as similar to getting indignant toward the suggestion of tougher DUI laws after we've all just heard of some wrong way driver plowing through a family on the freeway. Why the fuck NOT talk about it now? How in the hell is it not relevent?? I'm truly baffled.

And besides...waiting for the corpses to get cold sure hasn't stopped the likes of Mike Huckabee from insisting the real reason these children are dead is that we've taken Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus out of our schools.

If we're going to launch right into speculations of causality, I'd at least like it to be with one tippy toe grounded in reality.

But in any case...I do want to state that I don't think anyone here - myself included - questions your heart where these kids are concerned. But I absolutely do put myself on the side of tighter gun control.

And besides...waiting for the corpses to get cold sure hasn't stopped the likes of Mike Huckabee from insisting the real reason these children are dead is that we've taken Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus out of our schools.

And how does Gov. Huck explain his 17 year old son hanging a dog from a tree?

And how does Gov. Huck explain his 17 year old son hanging a dog from a tree?

Holy crap. I had forgotten about that. Excellent point.

I'm sorry if I came off as overly testy in the post above. I am just very frayed by this incident (like all of us, I'm sure). I didn't even get the details of it all til I got home this evening, so it's still very fresh for me.

This horrific act just tears me up. I can't even try to wrap my head around this act -- how does one do this to anyone, let alone a group of children? If hell exists, I hope there is a special place for this S.O.B.All day long, I've had an overwhelming desire to hug my grandkids. I almost drove the 7 hrs to their house after work -- I wish they were closer.

"Newtown shootings: if not now, when is the time to talk about gun control?

With 28, including 20 children, shot dead in Connecticut, it's not 'politics' but basic decency to insist America have this debate

Gary Younge

guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 19.04 GMT

Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut is shocking and horrifying Ė the time and the place of these massacres inevitably catch us unawares. But the fact that another mass shooting has occurred is not shocking, any more than the last one was, or the next one will be.

Just as with the mass killings earlier this year at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and the Aurora movie theater, near Denver, Colorado, the chorus of empathetic responses that will follow these tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut marks a stubborn refrain in a perennial American elegy. Different singers mouthing different words, but basically singing the same song.

Psychological profiles of the shooter emerge, along with portraits of the victims, while the political class closes ranks so that the nation can heal. Incanted tones to sooth a permanent scar.

All rituals serve a purpose. And this one is no different.

This Friday, 28 people are currently reported shot dead, including 20 children. Their families must be given space to mourn, and that space should be respected.

But it does not honour the dead to insist that there must be no room in that space for rational thought and critical appraisal. Indeed, such situations demand both. For one can only account for so many "isolated" incidents before it becomes necessary to start dealing with a pattern.

It is simply not plausible to understand events in Connecticut this Friday without having a conversation about guns in a country where more than 84 people a day are killed with guns, and more than twice that number are injured with them.

Amid all the column inches and airtime now being devoted to these horrific slayings, though, that elephant in the room will remain affectionately patted, discreetly fed and politely indulged. To claim that "this is not the time" ignores the reality that America has found itself incapable of finding any appropriate time to have this urgent conversation. The victims in Newtown, Connecticut deserve at least that. And these tragedies take place everyday, albeit on a smaller scale.

America's president, Barack Obama, understands this. The number of homicide victims in his home town of Chicago this year has outnumbered the fatalities among US troops serving in Kabul.

In response to the Aurora shootings in July, President Obama was right to suspend the routine campaign rhetoric and play the statesman. Nobody wanted to hear about Mitt Romney's tax records and stimulating the economy on that day. There were other days for electioneering, true, but he was wrong to insist on this:

"There are going to be other days for politics. This is a day for prayer and reflection."

Yet that "other day" for debating gun laws never came Ė not at any point in the three months that remained before the election. Even now, right on cue, the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, has intoned the familiar strain that "now is not the time" to talk about gun control.

For what are we to reflect on if not how this, and so many other similar calamities, came about. Those who insist that we should not "play politics" with the victim's grief conveniently ignore that politics is what caused that grief. Not party politics. But a blend of opportunism on the right that flagrantly mischaracterises the issue, and spinelessness on the left that refuses to address it.

Americans are no more prone to mental illness or violence than any other people in the world. What they do have is more guns: roughly, 90 for every 100 people. And regions and states with higher rates of gun ownership have significantly higher rates of homicide than states with lower rates of gun ownership.

The trite insistence that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" simply avoids the reality that people can kill people much more easily with guns than anything else that's accessible. Americans understand this. That's why a plurality supports greater gun control, and a majority thinks the sale of firearms should be more tightly regulated.

The trouble is that people feel powerless to do anything about it. The gun lobby has proved sufficiently potent in rallying opposition to virtually all gun control measures that Democrats have all but given up on arguing for it. In the meantime, the country is literally and metaphorically dying for it.

Gun control is possible. There are both a constituency for it and an argument for it. But it can't happen without a political coalition prepared to fight for it.

desire to hug my grandkids. I almost drove the 7 hrs to their house after work -- I wish they were closer.

Mike

I have this same feeling, I wish my kids and grandaughter were closer...I just want to hug them. I called my 13yo right fter school and told him i loved him and he was all "Ok dad, Ok" I talked to my older son and his wife and they are sleeping with my 1 yo Gdaughter tonight and holding her close. I told them to give her a big hug from Grandpa.

Well, you made me quite angry with the way that you worded your reaction. So if I misread what you wanted to say I apologize. I simply had a problem with the tone and words that you chose.

We'll move along. This very saddening event is bigger than any animosity we may feel for one another.

We all hurt over this, and while we may have different opinions about how to express it I feel I owe you an apology as well. You dont sicken me, your the last person in this place that sickens me. It's the loss that sickens me and I lashed out at you for it, im sorry. Lets not tear each other down anymore. Lets come together.

This is tragic but I wonder what drugs he was taking. Obviously he was not of sound mind, and it was reported that he had mental issues, which means that he was taking medication that might of drove him to kill these people.

There's now a report (NBC) that Lanza was at this school on Thursday and had an altercation with four staff members -- all targets of his rampage on Friday, and three of which are now dead. The lone surviving staff member of this altercation is being interviewed and may provide a basis for motive.

This is tragic but I wonder what drugs he was taking. Obviously he was not of sound mind, and it was reported that he had mental issues, which means that he was taking medication that might of drove him to kill these people.

Even if he had mental issues, it doesn't mean he was taking medication.

A man was just on CNN remembering his beautiful daughter Emily ... my heart breaks when I see the photos of the children . He began by remembering the family of the shooter and paying tribute to the pain they must also feel .

To look outside of your self in a time of pain is the mark of something special .

A dad of one of the small little victims just gave some words on CNN about his beautiful baby girl 6 year old Emilie. I don't know how he did it to be honest. I was crying like a little girl myself..

All of this puts life in perspective. I listened to a teacher that advised she locked the kids in a room while the shooting was happening and she told each of the little kids that she loved them all. She didn't want the last thing these kids heard were gun shots. She really is a special person.

A man was just on CNN remembering his beautiful daughter Emily ... my heart breaks when I see the photos of the children . He began by remembering the family of the shooter and paying tribute to the pain they must also feel .

To look outside of your self in a time of pain is the mark of something special .

That was to get through, very tough.

and yes, what a remarkable man.

I've had to turn off the TV, I feel drained by it all. I'm lucky I'm able to "turn it off", these poor parents will never be able to turn it off.

The SNL open was great. I am glad they did that, instead of going with a regular cold open. I am still wondering what Samuel L Jackson's motivation was for dropping the f-bomb and then saying bullshit. We were wondering if he was making some point that we worry more about curse words on TV, rather than worry about more serious issues. But, that's a discussion for another day.